After transitioning from a cattle stud to an olive grove in the 1990s, the Owen family wasn't sure if livestock would ever make a return to their property on the Southern Downs.
Coolmunda Organic Olives owners Gesine and Colin Owen felt the country at Nunyara near Inglewood was too light for cattle and feeding in drought years was not economical.
But after trialling sheep over the past few years, they've become believers again, with more than 200 Dorpers now wandering the 9000-tree farm.
Their daughter and farm manager Katie Baker said the new additions fit perfectly with the property's biodiversity goals.
"Our biggest catch cry at Coolmunda is we tread softly. We're trying to make this land a better place for our having been here, so we'd like to have a viable agribusiness but with assisting and working with the land rather than causing it damage," Ms Baker said.
"They do the whipper snipping and pruning and provide organic fertiliser as they go. I call them 'geeps' because they're more like goats.
"It's a lovely sight seeing the Dorpers roam through the grove."
Gesine and Colin kickstarted the biodiverse approach, planting tens of thousands of trees over the years and switching the business model to organic in 2007.
It was at that time that their daughter started working for Coolmunda - albeit on the business side of things from Brisbane.
Time for a hands-on approach
When the youngest of her three children left home this year, Katie decided to make the move to the farm.
Now Ms Baker has her sights set on growing the eco-tourism side of the business and growing the flock.
"The positives of the Dorper sheep is they're tough and they're also multiple breeders, so they'll often have twins and triplets. Within two years, they'll have three lots of lambs," she said.
"The old school thought is the rams just stay with them for five or six years which means [inbreeding] with mothers and sisters, so we flip ours every two seasons."
But for Ms Baker, there remains the issue of what to do with the males.
"They're fat and happy and they have good lives, but currently when we have weaners that are wethers, we send them off to the markets.
"I was so excited this year because it was 65 per per cent girls and all of my poddies were girls, so they can just join the flock and live happy lives out there."
Cutting down on stress
Ms Baker wants to reduce the amount of time the sheep spend in transit, but she faces several challenges, including a lack of local organic butchers.
"I did find places that took organic sheep and they just buy directly from you. At least they don't have the stress of the two journeys - the two or three overnights waiting around. They go directly to one place, so that's my preference."
However, turning off 20 to 40 sheep a year is not enough for many processors.
"I need a minimum of 50 at a time to make it worthwhile for these places to kill organically. I just haven't had the numbers to do that. This is the first year that I've got more than 40 at one time," she said.
At one of their latest sales at Warwick Saleyards in May, Coolmunda sold Dorper x lambs for $108-$174, so going the local organic butchery route could also yield more dollars per head.
"We might make an extra $10 or $20 per head. Usually, the farmer from this end isn't the one that gets the proceeds from the organic factor," Ms Baker said.
Katie still has plenty of learning ahead of her, but just like her parents, she'll adapt as she goes.
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